Review - HR 162 Introduced – Digital Reserve Corps

Earlier this month Rep Gonzales (R,TX) introduced HR 162, the National Digital Reserve Corps Act. The bill would establish within the General Services Administration (GSA) a ‘National Digital Reserve Corps’, to help address the digital and cybersecurity needs of Executive agencies. The bill would add a new Chapter 103 to 5 USC. The bill would authorize $30 million for this new program.

This bill is identical to HR 4818 that was introduced by Gonzales in the 117^th Congress. That bill saw no committee action in the 117^th. Gonzales did attempt to get the bill added to the National Defense Authorization Act (both HR 4350 and HR 7900) as a floor amendment, but the amendment was never added to the list of amendments allowed to be offered on the floor.

Moving Forward

Neither Gonzalez nor his sole cosponsor {Rep Kelly (D,IL)} have been assigned to committees yet, so it is too early to tell if they have the influence necessary to see the bill considered in the House Oversight Committee to which this bill has been assigned for consideration. While I suspect that this bill would receive bipartisan support were it considered, I am afraid that the focus of the Committee on investigations dealings with the Biden Administration will limit the number of bills that will be considered. I also suspect that the Committee leadership would not be inclined to expand federal government operations, even in the cybersecurity realm.

 

For more details about the provisions of this bill, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/hr-162-introduced - subscription required.